Valiant Choices

By Susan Doris Gold

This unique family saga, structured as a fictional memoir, chronicles the fascinating life experiences of Ellen Greene from

childhood to her senior years. Ellen grows up in a dysfunctional environment with a mean, angry father, and a passive mother

who compensates by giggling and laughing at everything. Ellen's dream, besides escap

• Language: English
• Publisher: Susan D. Gold
• Release date: Mar 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685158286

Susan Doris Gold

Susan Doris Gold is retired from a long career in clinical laboratory testing and research. After discovering fulfillment by putting her thoughts into words, she was drawn to write fiction because it gave her the power to create and develop characters, taking them wherever she wanted them to go in the story. Susan has resided on Long Island since she was a child, loving its beauty, culture and opportunities. She now lives a few miles from the north shore of Suffolk County with her significant other and their beautiful rescue dog.

Book preview

Chapter 1

I

was about four in the early sixties, when I lived in Queens, New York, a bridge away from Manhattan. We lived on the top floor of a six-story post-war building. The square foyer that contained our small black and white television and a couch led to a step-down living room. There were two bedrooms, so I shared the second one with my baby brother, Joey.

My tiny eyes perceived our apartment as enormous, but years later when I went back there with my mother to visit an old friend, it appeared much smaller. My memories of that age were always in black and white and my father, Thomas, never had a face but I concluded, later in life, that there was a good reason for this. He was a morose, irritating, and menacing man whose corrosive personality seemed to eat away at our family. On weekdays, I would listen for the apartment door to slam in the morning as he left for his teaching job. That’s when I could let go of Smushy, the teddy bear my grandmother gave me. He was my protector. My days were always interrupted by stomach pains that would assault me as soon as I got home from school, apprehensively waiting for him to walk in the door. My mother took me to the doctor, who said that I was an anxious child. Medicine seemed to help with the cramping but not with the dread. Joey was only a baby but I remember that he never went near him. I’ll never forget that after an irate rant, my father once resorted to making farting sounds with his armpits. He placed the inside of his palm into the armpit, creating suction and then moved the arm up and down. It was silly, but Joey and I laughed heartily, hanging on to any positive attention from him. We waited for him to do it again, but he never did. One day he came home with his usual scrunched, angry face, yelling at something. I asked him why he didn’t stop being a teacher and join a circus where he could make money doing armpit farts. That didn’t go over too well.

My mother, Harriet, was the happiness for us. She tried to make up for my father’s behavior by flitting around, giggling and laughing at everything. Every sentence ended with a giggle, whether it was funny or not. I remember that she once giggled, while on her back under the kitchen sink, trying to shut off a flooding water valve as it gushed into her mouth and almost drowned her. When we were old enough, we realized that her indiscriminate laughter was a control mechanism for hysteria, resulting from being married to my father, and trying to stem the emotional damage to Joey and me.

By the time I was six, my father had saved enough money to buy a small tract house in Hicksville, Long Island. He didn’t want to move but my mother threatened to stop cooking for him so he gave in, stupidly insisting that the property be put in my mother’s name. By then, some of the post war identical homes there had become individualized. Rooms were added, second floors were built and lovely gardens were grown. Our house wasn’t updated at all but to me and Joey, it was wonderful. It had a decent sized living/dining room with a fireplace, a tiny kitchen and three small bedrooms. Mom, Joey and I were happy there. Laurie was the first person I met after moving in. She lived across the street from me and had one of the bigger houses on the block. We were both six and were in the same first grade class. The two of us enjoyed riding our tricycles up and down the street and meeting new friends. Missy was a year younger than we were and had a big collection of Barbie dolls along with a lot of Barbie outfits. We spent a lot of time at her house and it didn’t hurt that her parents had a color television. Our fights were fearsome and called for taking sides. We each had our turn being left out and it was terrible if you were the victim. Our friendships grew and became more meaningful. Getting older came with its problems and we comforted each other through times of the month, acne breakouts and unrequited puppy love. My friends loved coming to my house during the day because my mother was a joy, or sometimes overjoy to be around but sleepovers were never by me. They were afraid of my father, whose physical appearance matched his demeanor. He was a large man with angry eyes.

When it was time for me to attend college, I was ripe for any means of escape. I wanted to go away to a school outside the one-hundred-mile radius of my chaotic home but my grade average and my parents’ finances prevented that from happening. I prayed to be able to transfer out of the local community college after two years with high grades, financial help from the government and scholarships.

Chapter 2

I

first saw Mark Lorrey in anatomy lecture hall during my freshman year. His muscular frame and chiseled features were like a magnet to my eyes. I stared at him during the lectures. Then one day Dr. Forman, the professor, announced that one dead cat would be distributed to every two students for dissection. When he announced, Ellen Greene and Mark Lorrey, come get your cadaver. I couldn’t believe it. We would be sharing this poor, formaldehyde-soaked feline. As the body laid on the black counter Mark held up the scalpel and said, Ellen, you want the honors? I couldn’t believe my luck. I wasn’t loaded with self-esteem, even though I was told that I was pretty by my mother and my friends whose bias didn’t count. I was a slim, tall girl with curly, light brown hair and hazel eyes that I thought were too close together for my face. I also had a few scars from my prior bouts of acne. Even though I doubted that he would ever be attracted to me, I would get to be in close contact with him for a time. We dove into the organs with gusto and I found it easy and pleasant to be with him. To my surprise, he wanted to go out with me by the time we cut into the cats’ kidneys two weeks later. Mark and I started dating after that and we socialized with his friends and with mine. Sometimes, we would all go to a late movie, followed by burgers and shakes at a diner. Friday nights were spent at our local pizza place, but mostly we would look for spots to be alone so we could do ‘everything but’. His late model Mustang was not comfortable but it was the only available place. He was a great kisser and knew where to put his hands and when to put them there. One time, I comically asked if he read a step by step manual or if he had prior experience. He giggled, which reminded me of my mother and killed the mood, but it was a great laughter moment. He would often get very quiet and pensive but I never asked him about it because I was happy in our bubble of independence and hormone raging lust. Mark had a bunch of close friends. Joe and Pete were fraternal twins and were on the football team with Mark, in High School. Langly, or Lee as they called him was his childhood friend as well as his cousin. He looked nothing like Mark, being olive skinned and lanky. Pete was a big, heavy guy with a kind face and a dirty mouth. Joe was also large with a more menacing face but kinder personality. There was never a time when the boys weren’t good buddies. It was a closed group that didn’t need others except for their girlfriends. It was always Pete and Nancy, Lee and Vanessa, Mark and me, Joe and whoever he was currently seeing. My friends thought that Mark was very nice but said that he seemed uncomfortable around them. I never noticed this, blocking out anything negative. We had been together for over a year when I wanted to move our relationship forward and meet each others’ families, but Mark didn’t want to. He said that he was perfectly content as we were. I was hurt and afraid that he didn’t care enough for me. He proclaimed that he loved me but was afraid that meeting his family might change my feelings for him. Wow, it was the same fear I had about him meeting scary Thomas and giggly Harriet. He finally agree to take me to his house, one beautiful spring day. I could see that he was nervous and I was a little, too. I already knew that he lived in Westbury and that his family owned Lorreycross Carriers, a trucking company, but little else. On the way he told me a little about his family background.

My mother, Marion, and father, Frederick, met at a country club dance in the early fifties. They dated for a year, got engaged and then married. My maternal grandfather was an orthopedist on Long Island. It was expected that Mother would move into Frederick’s family home after marriage, which she did. My older sister, Colette is married to a lawyer and lives in Roslyn.

I suddenly became aware of our surroundings, not expecting the twists and turns in the road that led to beautiful wooded areas and long driveways where you couldn’t see beyond. We were in Old Westbury, not Westbury. It’s still called The Gold Coast of Long Island, and in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was mostly populated by railroad tycoons, steel barons and bankers. They were known as old money. When that generation passed, many properties were passed down to family or bought by younger, newly wealthy people. Some of the old mansions remained as they were, upgraded or were entirely demolished and newly built to reflect current trends. He placed his hand on the entryway security box and the gates swung open. I was starting to sweat and I felt my heart racing. I shakily said, You didn’t tell me this part. There was no response. We drove along the lengthy cobblestone driveway surrounded by beautiful flowering trees. I still get the chills when I think back to seeing it for the first time. After a minute or two, a huge structure came into view. I couldn’t define it as a house because it looked like the manor mansions in England. It was a three story, white stone building that reflected the sunlight and seemed to sparkle. There were many windows and a large portico entrance, which is where we stopped. I noticed meticulous landscaping of hedges, lawns, and a fountain. He told me that it was an eighteen room Georgian house. Mark’s lifestyle was incomprehensible to me and I now saw him in a new light. It was very strange that he and I were together for over a year, yet I knew nothing about this. I pictured him living in a big split level. It then occurred to me that I only knew him superficially. I was ashamed of my parents but I naively thought that he couldn’t be embarrassed by his, especially when I went through his front door into what looked like a palace. It was immense and elaborate. The grand foyer was round with big checkered, black and white marble tiles and a two story domed ceiling. On the right was a grand staircase that curved along the wall up to the second floor. There was a mural of woods and dogs going up that entire space which led to an open gallery looking down over the foyer. It was amazing. There was an abundance of dark wood and intricate moldings as far as my eye could see, yet beige walls and muted colors kept it from looking dreary. Two big vases containing fresh flowers sat on antique tables in the entrance. Mark led me into the parlor where we sat and waited for his family to show. This intimate, cozy room belonged in an English cottage. The moldings in here were white and the furniture consisted of two chairs and a love seat covered with red cabbage rose fabric. These pieces were situated around a fireplace and sat on a flowered area rug with dark wood floors underneath. All of the art work on the walls were oil paintings of various flowers. It was fascinating and I wanted to just curl